This invention deals generally with receptacles, and more specifically with a cemetery vase, a container to hold flowers at a grave site.
The cemetery vases used to hold flowers at a grave site have one primary requirement. They must be inexpensive. Since such cemetery vases are left unattended for long periods of time, there is no assurance that the vases will be not be taken from their location. In fact, The requirement of maintaining the grave site by mowing the grass means it is almost certain that a new cemetery vase is required for every bunch of flowers brought to a cemetery. Therefore, florists furnish cemetery vases to customers, and whether it is included in the cost of the flowers or sold separately, there is a strong incentive to minimize the cost.
Cemetery vases have therefore typically been made of only two parts, a metal cone with a hole in the apex, and a metal spike bonded into and protruding through the hole. This permits the spike to be pushed into the ground so that the interior of the cone can hold the flowers. However, even this simple structure has problems. Clearly, the ability to push the spike into the ground depends on the bond between the spike and the cone, and such bonds, being dependent on the adhesion, have only limited strength. Furthermore, the only practical method of making a metal cone is to shape sheet metal into the required shape, and that is a relatively complex process.
It would be a considerable structural advantage to have a cemetery vase with a mechanical connection between the spike and the container, and it would be a great economic advantage to be able to make the container of a plastic which could be formed into shape with a high speed molding process. In such a system both the cost of material and the manufacturing time could be greatly reduced.